A detection system coupled to a video camera can be used to locate road lane markings and road boundaries. Conventional approaches exploit either the directed continuity of the boundary/stripe or the known size of the markings to locate them. Approaches using the continuity of the stripe fail when the markings are of the Botts dots type (domed, white, disks about 10 cm in diameter) or reflectors, which do not provide a sufficiently continuous signal.
Approaches using the known size of the markings fail when the marking has a different size. Finally, approaches using a Hough transform fail in difficult conditions (such as multiple, parallel, markings, where more than one solution exists) and require significant computation power. Other conventional approaches identify lane markings only by looking for vertical edges in the image of a road. However, vertical edge detection fails in curves, where the markings appear at a significant angle.